BATON ROUGE — The Louisiana Department of Health is allowing hospitals to give any leftover vaccines they may have to anyone who is eligible to receive the vaccine.
LDH released this new guidance Tuesday morning.
Hospitals received their first allotments of the vaccine during Christmas week. Those shipments were designated for Phase 1A groups, which includes healthcare personnel and long-term-care facility residents. Now, LDH says if those facilities have any vaccine doses available after giving shots to people in the Phase 1A group, they may now give those doses to anyone in Phase 1B. That includes the following people:
- Persons ages 70 years or older in the community,
- Outpatient clinic providers and clinic staff,
- Urgent care clinic providers and staff,
- Community care clinic providers and staff,
- Behavioral health providers and staff,
- Dialysis center providers, staff and clients (if not already being vaccinated by their dialysis centers),
- Home health service providers and recipients,
- Dental providers and staff, and
- Students, residents, faculty and staff of allied health schools (if not already receiving vaccine or in a plan to receive from their respective schools).
"We are so encouraged by our residents' clear demand for the COVID vaccine," said Dr. Courtney N. Phillips, Secretary of LDH. "While demand is clearly outpacing supply, this is just the start. We do anticipate vaccine will become increasingly available in the coming weeks and months, and as it does we will continue to bring additional sites online. For now, 10,700 newly eligible residents will have the opportunity to get vaccinated this week, and that's progress. Thank you for your patience. In the meantime, we will continue to work with our hospital partners to make the COVID vaccine increasingly available for their eligible patients and community members."
LDH officials urge Louisiana residents to continue wearing masks and following other mitigation methods.
(Heather Corby contributed to this story.)